Sure can WYSIWYG! I’ve submitted my application to OAT today!
At a good flight school you are looking at a base rate for the course of about £55,000. Oxford Aviation Training charge £58,500 whilst CABAIR charge £49,000 so as you can see there is a huge difference in costs.
The first thing to do is find a decent flight school. In today’s climate it is vital that your friend goes to a school that offers a little bit extra, but most importantly, a school where he feels comforatable and feels that he can really achieve his goals. We have a few good schools here in the UK.
As I said above I’ve chosen OAT (Oxford Aviation Training), my reasons behind this are that firstly I only live six miles from the school, secondly I’ve made many visits and always felt at home there and thirdly it is recognised by several major airlines and the full course has been created with there help.
However OAT is a very competitive school to get into, only roughly 1 in every 8 that applies is successful in their application and it is for that reason that I’ve applied a year early so that in the likely event that I am unsuccessful this year, I can re-apply at a later date.
There are several other very good schools in the UK, Cabair stands out. It’s based at Canfield University which is widely recognised as one of the top venues for aerospace education.
Once your friend has decided which school he likes he should chose whether to do a full time course (integrated) or a part time course (modular). There is a huge misunderstanding about airline preference. It is widely believed that Integrated pilots will always be chosen before modular pilots by airline. This simply isn’t the case. A recent survey conducted by several major airline highlighted the fact that they no longer worry about the course taken, but are more focused on the individual and their ability to work as part of a team.
This web site: http://www.gapan.org/career/survey.htm has the full results of the survey and makes for some surprising reading.
Once a course has been chosen, your friend will need to finance his career. Here in the UK it is near impossible to get a 100% loan for flight training. HSBC are the only bank that specialise in commercial pilot training loans, and will usually pay roughly 60% of the course fees.
The whole process is a major undertaking that could make or break the individual involved. There should be no illusions, securing a job is extremely tough at the moment. If your friend is over 27 years old it is unlikely that he will be recruited as a low hours pilot.
The industry is in a grim state at the moment, although it is starting to pick up again, major airline recruitment isn’t expected to start until 2006 at the earliest.
I hope this helps and I wish your friend the very best of luck.
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